The sun is shining everywhere except where I am headed. Ahead of us a dark wall of rain is building, and it has the deliberate shape of a proper storm coming together rather than just a passing shower. The chart says we are going through the middle of it, more or less, which seems to be the way of these things.

The trip itself has been a good one. I managed to get in two solid sailing legs, which is unusually generous for the Galápagos where the wind so often refuses to commit to any one direction. The second leg even had the wind coming from the opposite direction to the first, but it was still good sailing, and a useful reminder that you take what the ocean gives you out here. The weather has its own ideas, and you can either argue with them or get out the foul-weather jacket.